文學與人生 Dream sees the invisible, feels the intangible and achieves the impossible.

Chapter 1-4 莉莉試圖找到自己的定位,學習如何當一個女孩...

T. Ray and I lived just outside Sylvan, South Carolina population 3,100. Peach stands and Baptist churches, that sums it up.

迪瑞和我就住在南卡羅萊納州,汐爾凡外緣,人口3,100.有林立的桃子樹和幾處的浸信會教堂,大致是如此.

At the entrance to the farm we had a big wooden sign with OWENS PEACH ENTERPRISES painted across it in the worst orange color you’ve ever seen. I hated that sign. But the sign was nothing compared with the giant peach perched atop a sixty-foot pole beside the gate. Everyone at school referred to it as the Great Fanny, and I’m cleaning up the language. Its fleshy color, not to mention the crease down the middle, gave it the unmistakable appearance of a rear end. Rosaleen said it was T. Ray’s way of mooning the entire world. That was T. Ray.

農場的入口處,我們有一個很大的木製招牌,用你看過最糟的橘色橫印著”歐恩桃樹公司”.我恨惡這招牌.但這招牌還比不上那放在大門旁,60呎高柱上的巨大桃子.在學校每個人都說它是’大屁股’,而我要清除這罵人的話.那是肉色的顏色,就別提那中間皺摺的部份,看來就是不折不扣的屁眼.羅莎蘭說那就是迪瑞對整個世界挑釁的方式.那就是迪瑞.

Chapter 1-3  對母親的思念及內疚...

My first and only memory of my mother was the day she died. I tried for a long time to conjure up an image of her before that, just a sliver of something, like her tucking me into bed, reading the adventures of Uncle Wiggly, or hanging my underclothes near the space heater on ice-cold mornings. Even her picking a switch off the forsythia bush and stinging my legs would have been welcome.

我對母親最初和唯一的回憶是她死的那一天。我花了很長的時間嘗試要想起對她之前的印象,只有一些片段,像她將我舒服地放到被窩裡,朗讀”維格禮叔叔的歷險記”給我聽,或是在冰冷的早晨將我的內衣掛在小型電熱器旁邊.甚至是她從連翹灌木中摘了一根細枝,刺在我的腿上也很令我欣然接受.

The day she died was December 3, 1954. The furnace had cooked the air so hot my mother had peeled off her sweater and stood in short sleeves, jerking at the window in her bedroom, wrestling with the stuck paint.

她死的那天是1954年12月3日.暖氣爐讓空氣變得很熱,媽咪脫下毛衣穿著短袖衣服,在她的房間裡猛拉窗戶,與卡住的塗料奮戰.

Chapter 1-2  母親死亡的陰影,缺乏父愛,替身母親的出現...

 July 1,1964, I lay in bed, waiting for the bees to show up, thinking of what Rosaleen has said when I told her about their nightly visitations.

 1964年7月1日,我躺在床上,等著蜂出現,想著我告訴羅莎蘭有關牠們的夜訪後.她所說的話 

“Bees swarm before death”, she’d said.

Chapter 1-1  蜜蜂是自然的奧秘,莉莉看到的是幻覺還是真實...

At night I would lie in bed and watch the show, how bees squeezed through the cracks of my bedroom wall and flew circles around the room, making that propeller sound, a high-pitched zzzzzz that hummed along my skin. I watched their wings shining like bits of chrome in the dark and felt the longing build in my chest. The way those bees flew, not even looking for a flower, just flying for the feel of the wind, split my heart down its seam.

夜晚我會躺在床上看一場秀,蜂如何在我房間牆上的裂縫勉強通過,又在我的房內到處盤旋,發出螺旋槳的聲音,發出高音調嘶嘶聲,延著我的皮膚嗡嗡作響.我看著他們在黑暗中閃爍的翅膀像黃色的小點,感覺牠們渴望在我的胸膛上駐留.那些蜂飛翔的方式,不是在尋找花朵,只是隨風而舞,溜到了我心的縫合處.

During the day I heard them tunneling through the walls of my bedroom, sounding like a radio tuned to static in the next room, and I imagined them in there turning the walls into honey-combs, with honey seeping out for me to taste.

白天,我聽到他們在我房間牆壁穿鑿的聲音，聽起來像是隔壁房間將收音機調為靜電干擾，我想像牠們在裡面將牆壁構築為蜂巢，縫隙中滲出蜂蜜由我品嘗。

The queen, for her part, is the unifying force of the community; if she is removed from the hive, the workers very quickly sense her absence. After a few hours, or even less, they show unmistakable signs of queenlessness. (Man and inset)

以皇后她的角色,是群體統合的力量;假如她被移出蜂巢,工蜂很快就感受到她的缺席.幾小時後,或更短時間內,牠們明顯表現出無后的徵象.(人與蜂)